Chapter 10 Logan
I'd been staring at my ceiling for an hour when I finally gave up on sleep.
The Championship preliminaries were in two days, and my brain had apparently decided that rest was for people who didn't have the weight of an entire team's season resting on their shoulders.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw pucks slipping past me, heard the disappointed silence of the crowd, felt the crushing weight of failing everyone who'd believed in me.
The medication wasn't working. The breathing exercises weren't working. Nothing was working.
Mira stood there in oversized team sweatpants that had to be Blake's and a tank top, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. She looked at me without surprise, like she'd been expecting me.
"Can't sleep?" she asked softly.
"How did you know?"
"Your room is right above mine. You've been pacing for the last hour." She stepped back, gesturing me inside. "Come on. I've been researching something."
Her room was smaller than mine, but she'd made it distinctly hers—posters of famous figure skaters on one wall, a small shelf of books about sports psychology, a yoga mat rolled in the corner. Her laptop was open on the bed, surrounded by notebooks covered in her precise handwriting.
"Researching what?" I asked, hovering awkwardly near the door.
"Goalie psychology." She picked up one of the notebooks, flipping it open.
"Did you know that goalies have the highest rates of performance anxiety in hockey?
It's because you're the last line of defense.
Every mistake is magnified. Every save is expected.
The pressure is exponentially higher than any other position. "
Something tight in my chest loosened slightly. "You've been studying this?"
"Of course I have. You're part of my team. I want to understand what you're dealing with." She patted the bed. "Sit. I want to try something."
Every rational part of my brain screamed that sitting on Mira's bed at 1 AM was a terrible idea. I sat anyway.
"Lie down," she instructed.
I lay back, staring up at her ceiling, which had glow-in-the-dark stars arranged in actual constellations.
"Close your eyes," she said, and her voice shifted into something lower, softer. "You're in goal. Period one. The puck drops."
I closed my eyes, and immediately my heart rate kicked up. But then her hand settled on my chest, right over my sternum, warm and grounding.
"Breathe with me," she murmured.
I followed her rhythm, feeling my heartbeat slow under her palm.
"The other team has possession. They're skating toward you, but you're ready.
You've studied their patterns. You know their tells.
" Her voice was hypnotic, painting the scene.
"Their center winds up for a slapshot. You see it in slow motion—the way his shoulders drop, the angle of his stick.
You know exactly where this shot is going. "
I could see it. More than see it—I was there, in that moment, completely calm.
"You shift your weight. The puck comes at you like it's on a string, and you catch it in your glove. Easy. Like you've done it a thousand times before. Because you have."
Her hand was still on my chest, moving slightly with each breath. It was the most intimate thing I'd experienced, and we were both fully clothed with a foot of space between us.
"Every save is like that," she continued. "You've practiced these movements until they're not thoughts anymore—they're just actions. Muscle memory. Trust."
"That's what you did," I said, opening my eyes to look at her. "Before competitions."
She nodded, her hand still resting over my heart. "I'd visualize every element of the program until I could perform it in my sleep. Every jump, every spin, every moment choreographed in my mind first. The anxiety doesn't go away, but it transforms into something else. Preparation. Readiness."
"My dad doesn't understand that." The words came out before I could stop them. "He wanted me to take over the family banking firm. Thought hockey was... frivolous. A waste of my potential."
Mira's eyes softened. "And the anxiety?"
"Is partly about proving that abandoning the predetermined path was worth it. That I'm not just his disappointment in goalie pads."
"You're not," she said firmly. "You're one of the best goalies I've ever seen, and I've seen Olympic-level competition. Your dad's wrong."
"You say that like it's a fact."
"It is a fact. I have statistical evidence." She reached for one of her notebooks, and I caught her hand.
"Stay," I said. "Just... talk to me. Tell me about your pre-competition rituals. All of them."
So she did. She told me about the specific breakfast she always ate, the way she'd listen to the same playlist in the same order, the lucky hair tie she'd worn for three years until it finally broke.
She told me about visualizing not just the performance, but the feeling afterward—the satisfaction of landing every element, the pride in executing the program exactly as planned.
"You don't visualize winning?" I asked.
"Winning is outside my control. The judges, the other competitors, the conditions—I can't control those things. But I can control my performance. So that's what I focus on."
"That's very zen."
"That's very anxiety management," she corrected with a small smile. "You can't afford to spiral about outcomes when you're attempting a triple axel."
We talked for another hour, her hand still resting over my heart, my breathing synced to hers.
At some point, I realized the knot of anxiety in my chest had loosened significantly, replaced by a different kind of tension—the awareness of how close we were, how easy it would be to pull her down beside me.
"Thank you," I said finally. "This helped. More than anything else has."
"Good." She started to move her hand away, and I caught it, lacing our fingers together.
"Mira?"
"Yes?"
"You said you wanted to understand what I'm dealing with as a goalie." I sat up, bringing us face to face. "What if I wanted to understand what you dealt with as a pairs skater?"
She blinked. "I don't see how—"
"Your equipment. Your costume. The weight and restriction you had to perform in." I stood up, pulling her with me. "I have my gear in my room. Come on."
Five minutes later, we were back in my room, and I was pulling out my goalie equipment. Mira stared at it like I'd produced a medieval torture device.
"This is what you wear?"
"Every game." I held up the leg pads. "Want to try?"
She looked dubious but game, so I helped her into the equipment piece by piece. The leg pads had to be strapped on tight, the chest protector swallowed her small frame, and by the time I added the blocker and glove, she looked like a tiny person drowning in protective gear.
"I can't move," she said, attempting to take a step and wobbling dangerously.
I caught her automatically, my hands on her waist to steady her. "You get used to it."
"How do you skate in this? How do you do anything in this?" She tried to lift her arms and nearly overbalanced. "I had no idea."
"Now imagine doing this while people are shooting frozen rubber at your face at ninety miles per hour."
"All goalies are insane." She attempted another step and started to fall forward. I caught her again, pulling her against my chest to keep her upright.
We stayed there, frozen, her face tilted up to mine. I was acutely aware of every point of contact—my hands on her waist, her palms braced against my chest, the way her breath had quickened.
"Logan," she whispered.
I started to lean down, drawn by something stronger than logic or self-preservation. Her eyes fluttered closed, lips parting slightly, and I was maybe two inches away when—
"Does anyone know where the—oh." Blake's voice, thick with sleep, came from the doorway. "Sorry. Didn't mean to... I'll just..." He backed out quickly, closing the door.
Mira and I sprang apart like we'd been electrocuted. Well, Mira tried to spring apart. Mostly she wobbled dangerously, and I had to catch her again.
"We should probably—" I started.
"Yeah. Definitely. The equipment." She was fumbling with the straps, her cheeks flushed. "This was very educational."
"Educational. Right."
I helped her out of the gear in silence, both of us carefully not looking at each other. When she was finally free, she headed for the door, then paused with her hand on the knob.
"Logan? Tonight—the visualization, the talking—it helped. Right?"
"More than you know."
"Good. Because..." She turned to look at me, and her expression was so vulnerable it made my chest ache.
"Sam never made me feel desired. I was useful to him.
An accessory. A tool to make him look better.
But when you look at me, I feel powerful.
Like wanting me gives me some kind of advantage instead of making me weak. "
"You are powerful," I said. "And anyone who made you feel otherwise was an idiot."
She smiled, soft and genuine, and then she was gone.
I lay back down on my bed, staring at the ceiling, and realized the anxiety about the game had been completely replaced by a different kind of tension. But this kind, at least, came with the possibility of something good.